• Personality: The psychological qualities that bring a
consistency to an individual’s thoughts and behaviors in
different situations and at different times.
• Personality is a continuously changing process, shaped
by our individual needs and cognitions and by external
pressures from the social environment.
• It is the thread that consistently runs through our lives.
• Two Main Theories
• Psychodynamic Theory: Freud’s theory that calls
attention to motivation, especially unconscious motives,
and the influence of our past experiences.
• Humanistic Theory: A theory that emphasizes the
present, subjective reality-what we believe is important
now, what we think of ourselves in relation to others is
important now.
• Clinical Perspective
• The clinical perspective utilizes a combination of the
psychodynamic and humanistic theories. This is most
often used by psychologists who are working with
people who are seeking counseling.
• Social Cognitive Theory
• Social-cognitive theory derives from experiments in
psychology rather than clinical work.
• This theory is based on the idea that personality is a
result of learning, perception and social interaction.
• Despite what it seems, social-cognitive theory and
clinical perspective compliment each other and share
some common ideas.
• Psychodynamic Theories
• Although there are a variety of psychodynamic theories,
they originate with Freud’s psychoanalytic theory.
• In this theory, Freud said the unconscious, the hidden
parts of the mind, was a source of powerful impulses,
instincts, motives, and conflicts that energize personality.
• Psychoanalysis
• Psychoanalysis focuses on how the mind’s energy is
exchanged, transformed and expressed.
• The “mental stream” of the sex drive was called the Eros,
he Greek god for passionate love. The energy behind this
drive was called libido, Latin for lust.
• The “mental stream” for destruction was Thanatos. Freud
called it the “death instinct” that drives aggressive and
destructive acts humans commit against each other.
• Personality Structure
Ego
• Freud saw human
personality as an
iceberg with three
parts: the Ego,
Superego and Id.
• In this model, the
superego and the id
were antagonist
parts, regulated by
the ego.
Conscious mind
Unconscious
mind
Superego
Id
• The Id
• In Freud’s model, the id is the primitive, unconscious
reservoir that houses the basic motives, drives and
instinctive desires that determine our personalities.
• Always acts on impulse and seeks immediate pleasure
• The only part of the personality present at birth
• Superego
• The superego is the “police” of personality and is
responsible for morals and values learned from society.
• The superego develops as the child forms an internal set
of rules based on external experiences
• The inner voice of shoulds and should nots
• Often conflicts with the id because the id wants what
feels good and the superego wants what is right and
moral
• The Ego
• Regulating the conflict between the id and the
superego is the job of the ego-the conscious,
rational part of the mind.
• The ego must figure out a way to satisfy one’s
desires, while not violating one’s moral code.
• When this balance becomes upset, conflicted
thoughts and behaviors that signify a mental
disorder may be the result
• Psychosexual Stages
• Freud believed that our early experiences stayed
with us and affected us throughout our
development, especially with regards to sex.
• Should something happen in the early years, people
will have problems to overcome later in life
specifically dealing with sexuality:
• Oedipus complex: boy in love with their mother
• Identification: boys love their mom/identify with
their dad
• Penis envy: girls desire to have a penis-attracted
to males
• Fixation: occurs when development is stopped at
a particular stage
Freud’s Psychosexual
Stages
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
Stage
Focus
Oral
(0-18 months)
Pleasure centers on the mouth-sucking, biting, chewing
Anal
(18-36 months)
Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder
elimination; coping with demands for
control
Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with
incestuous sexual feelings
Phallic
(3-6 years)
Latency
(6 to puberty)
Dormant sexual feelings
Genital
(puberty on)
Maturation of sexual interests
• Ego Defense
• Ego defense is the largely unconscious mental strategy to
reduce anxiety or conflict.
• Repression: the ego defense that excludes unacceptable or
inappropriate thoughts and feelings from our awareness.
• ***A complete list of ego defenses is on page 416, be able to
identify what these are.***
• Assessing the Unconscious
• Projective Test: a personality test, such as the Rorschach or
TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger
projection of one’s inner dynamics
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): a projective test in which
people express their inner feelings and interests through the
stories they make up about ambiguous scenes
Assessing the Unconscious-TAT
• Rorschach Inkblot Test
• the most widely used projective test
• a set of 10 inkblots designed by Hermann
Rorschach
• Seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by
analyzing their interpretations of the blots
• They are of questionable validity
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_te
st
• Criticism of Freud
• While Freud is still wildly popular in media and
culture, it has lost most of it support in the
psychology field.
• Many Freudian concepts (libido, repression) are
vague
• The focus is on retrospective explanation
• Only looks back, doesn’t give credit to the present or
future
• No thought given to women
• The unconscious mind is not as smart/purposeful as
Freud would like us to believe
• Neo-Freudians
• Freud was a controversial figure, and many of his
collogues broke away from his view, but still
maintained a psychodynamic aspect to their theories
• Alfred Adler
• Importance of childhood social tension
• Believed children often have inferiority complexes
• Karen Horney
• Sought to balance Freud’s masculine biases
• Carl Jung
• Emphasized the collective unconscious
• Concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory
traces from our species’ history
• Humanistic Theories
• Humanistic theories are optimistic about the core of
human nature.
• Personality is driven by needs to adapt and learn,
rather than unconscious conflicts or defense
mechanisms and anxiety
• Mental disorders occur when a person is in an
unhealthy situation that causes low self-esteem and
unmet needs, not from unhealthy individuals.
• Abraham Maslow
• The most famous humanistic perspective came from
Abraham Maslow who created a hierarchy of needs
(chapter 8).
• He said we needed something that described good
mental health as more than just the absence of
illness.
• Maslow saw a group of people in pursuit of “higher
ideals” and wanted a way to explain their behavior.
• Self-actualizing personalities- healthy individuals
who have met their basic needs and are free to be
creative and fulfill their potentialities.
• Maslow identified Abraham Lincoln as a selfactualizing personality
• Carl Rogers
• Another famous humanists was Carl Rogers who took
a different approach.
• He identified healthy personalities as the fully
functioning person.
• An individual who has a self-concept that is positive
and congruent with reality.
• Criticism of Humanistic Theories
• People criticize humanistic concepts as being fuzzy,
for example, what IS self actualization?
• For a long time, self-esteem was thought to cause
people to act the way they do.
• More recently, psychologists have argued that selfesteem isn’t the cause of behavior, but rather a byproduct of behavior.
• Social-cognitive Theories
• Where are the clinical views lack scientific backing,
the social-cognitive theories are solidly founded in
scientific tradition, with emphasis put on research.
• The most well known of these theories is
observational learning, supported by Albert Bandura.
• Bandura said we are not only driven by innerforces
and the environment, but also expectations about
how those actions will affect other people, the
environment and ourselves.
• Observational Learning
• In observational learning, we learn new responses by
watching each others’ behavior.
• Personality, thus, is learned behavior patterns
• These cognitive process involve an ongoing
relationship between the individual and the
environment called reciprocal determinism
• Social-Cognitive Perspective
• Locus of Control: Our sense of controlling our
environments rather than feeling helpless
• External Locus of Control: the perception that
chance or outside forces beyond one’s
personal control determine one’s fate
• Internal Locus of Control: the perception that
one controls one’s own fate
• Learned Helplessness: the hopelessness and
passive resignation an animal or human
learns when unable to avoid repeated
aversive events
• Learned Helplessness
Uncontrollable
bad events
Perceived
lack of control
Generalized
helpless behavior
• Personality and Temperament
• Temperament is the inherited personality
dispositions that are apparent in early childhood and
that establish “tempo” and “mood” in the
individual’s behaviors.
• Biological dispositions affect our basic personalities
• Traits and Personality
• Traits are stable personality characteristics that are
presumed to exist within the individual and to guide
his or her thoughts and actions under various
conditions
• The Five-Factor Theory: A perspective suggesting
that personality is composed of five fundamental
personality dimensions: openness to experience,
consciousness, extraversion, agreeableness and
neuroticism (explanation on page 432-433).
Five-Factor Theory
The “Big Five” Personality Factors
Trait Dimension
Description
Emotional Stability
Calm versus anxious
Secure versus insecure
Self-satisfied versus self-pitying
Extraversion
Sociable versus retiring
Fun-loving versus sober
Affectionate versus reserved
Openness
Imaginative versus practical
Preference for variety versus preference for routine
Independent versus conforming
Extraversion
Soft-hearted versus ruthless
Trusting versus suspicious
Helpful versus uncooperative
Conscientiousness
Organized versus disorganized
Careful versus careless
Disciplined versus impulsive
• Contemporary Research– The Trait
Perspective
• Trait
• a characteristic pattern of behavior
• a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by
self-report inventories and peer reports
• Personality Inventory
• a questionnaire (often with true-false or
agree-disagree items) on which people
respond to items designed to gauge a wide
range of feelings and behaviors
• used to assess selected personality traits
The Trait Perspective
UNSTABLE
Moody
Anxious
Rigid
Sober
Pessimistic
Reserved
Unsociable
Quiet
Touchy
Restless
Aggressive
Excitable
Changeable
Impulsive
Optimistic
Active
melancholic choleric
INTROVERTED
phlegmatic
Passive
Careful
Thoughtful
Peaceful
Controlled
Reliable
Even-tempered
Calm
• Hans and Sybil
Eysenck use two
primary
personality factors
EXTRAVERTED as axes for
sanguine
Sociable
describing
Outgoing
Talkative
personality
Responsive
Easygoing
variation
Lively
Carefree
Leadership
STABLE
• Visit the link below and read about the Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator and then take the short test to
determine your personality type. After you take the
test and have spent some time reading about the
different personality types, answer the following
questions. You should also read pages 436-437 for
more information regarding the Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator.
• http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventor
y.html
• 1. What was your personality type?
• 2. Do you agree or disagree with the results? Exlpain.
• 3. Do you believe that this is a valid test? How do
psychologists feel about this test? What does the
research say?